Presently, a variety of types of devices are capable of being configured with hardware and software necessary to function as mobile stations (user equipment) that can communicate with cellular networks. Laptops, smartphones, and tablets, are examples of devices often sold in cellular-capable and non-cellular configurations. Part of the cost of configuring devices for cellular communication stems from the need to generate and distribute unique communication parameters for each device. Typically, this involves a SIM Manager (Subscriber Identification Module), which may manufacture SIM cards and generate for each SIM card a unique secure key and a unique IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity), among other things. This information, or profile is usually a requisite for cellular communication protocols, must be securely stored on a SIM card, and must in turn be provided to an MNO (Mobile Network Operators) for storage in the MNO's HLR (Home Location Register). To date, these steps have been performed for nearly all cellular-capable devices produced, regardless of whether such devices are ultimately activated with an MNO for performing cellular communications. Considering that many cellular-capable devices are never activated, the corresponding total cost of providing an unused capability can be significant.
Lowering the cost of configuring devices to have unactivated cellular capability would not only have obvious direct benefits, but if costs were lowered sufficiently, device vendors might be able to stop producing non-cellular versions of some devices (due to lowered cost differential). Such a consolidation would likely lead to efficiency gains in production, customer support, software maintenance, etc. In addition, proliferation of cellular capability would be convenient for users. For example, if most devices were cellular-capable or if the prices of comparable cellular and non-cellular devices were sufficiently close, purchasers would not need to decide, when purchasing a device, whether additional up-front purchase price should be paid to have a capability whose need may be uncertain at the time of purchase.
For these reasons and others, it is desirable to reduce the cost of configuring devices to have cellular communication capability. In particular, it would be beneficial to avoid the need for MNOs to store and manage a unique waiting-to-be-activated profile (e.g., a SIM profile) for every respective cellular device that is to be sold, a significant portion of which may never be activated with an MNO.
Techniques related to pooling and sharing lightweight and possibly limited-privilege SIM profiles (“provisioning profiles”) among multiple cellular devices are discussed below.